Meet the people paying £7 million to have dinner with Theresa May and senior Cabinet Ministers

Meet the people paying £7 million to have dinner with Theresa May and senior Cabinet Ministers

Posted by Alex Clifford19033sc on July 21, 2018

Brexit-backing speculators, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s business partner, and Putin’s crony – meet the people paying £7 million to have dinner with Theresa May and senior Cabinet Ministers

Newly published details of secret dinners held by Theresa May and senior Cabinet Ministers to wine and dine leading Tory and Brexiteer donors reveal the extent to which Brexit-backing speculators and ideologues make their voice heard at the highest level of Government.

Having not updated details of donors who attended dinner with senior ministers for months, the Conservative Party have used the chaos and confusion of the Government’s Brexit negotiations to sneak out publication of the last three quarters’ names (Q3 2017, Q4 2017 and Q1 2018) all at once. This is the first-time details of dinner guests have been published by the Conservative Party under Theresa May since the 2017 General Election.

The publication reveals that super-wealthy donors being wined and dined by Theresa May and senior ministers include a host of speculating hedge funds, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s business partner at Somerset Capital Management, and the wife of Vladimir Putin’s former deputy finance minister.

One dinner guest, Hardy McLain, attended dinners in 2017 and 2018 and previously donated £20,000 to the Vote Leave campaign. The firm he founded was previously linked to attempts to “profit from Brexit uncertainty”.

Another, Dominic Johnson, who attended two dinners in 2017, is the co-founder of Somerset Capital Management - an investment firm set up by hard Brexiteer and Chairman of the ERG Jacob Rees-Mogg. Somerset was recently reported to be warning their clients about “considerable uncertainty” as a result of Brexit, and set up a new fund in Ireland, which benefits from EU financial passporting rights.

Edmund Truell, who attended dinners in 2017 and 2018, owns a Swiss-listed private equity business called Disruptive Capital which has a mission statement to ‘exploit market uncertainty’ to generate returns.

In total some 81 figures paid a total of £7.4 million to the Conservative Party for access to exclusive dinners with the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet Ministers since the General Election 2017.

The revelations highlight how speculators and ideologues are buying the right to have their voice heard by the Tory Government, pushing for a disastrous Brexit that will only benefit their irresponsible financial gambling. In the meantime, the British public is denied a voice on the final deal with Brussels.

Chris Bryant MP, a leading supporter of the People’s Vote campaign, said:

“People will rightly be angry to see the Government listen to Brexit donors in return for donations to the Tory Party while denying the British public a vote on their deal.

“As more and more facts come to light, it’s becoming clear that Brexit will only benefit financial gamblers and irresponsible speculators, and ordinary people up and down the country will be left worse off.

“Only a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal can get us out of this mess.”

/Ends

Notes to editors

After a long delay, the Conservative Party has now published details of dinners held since the 2017 general election for the Leader’s Group, an exclusive donor club that grants those who give £50,000 or more to the party access to dinners and meetings with the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet Ministers.

“Donors who give £50,000 or more can join Theresa May at private meals. Yet the Conservatives have published no attendees at the so-called ‘Leader’s Group’ dinners for a year - despite David Cameron pledging to do so every three months” (The Mirror, 14 December 2017,link).

The records were updated in the last few weeks. The last cached copy of the Conservative Donor Club website, from 4 May 2018, does not include the new lists. (Wayback Machine, accessed 11 July 2018,link).

The figures attending the dinners since the 2017 general election are as follows:

Hardy McLain (£115,000, attended dinners in Q4 2017 and Q1 2018):McLain donated £20,000 to the Vote Leave campaign, and is the Co-Founder of CVC Capital Partners, who have been reported to be raising new funds in the UK to benefit from the economic uncertainty caused by Brexit.

“Private equity groups look to profit from Brexit uncertainty[…] New funds have been raised since the Brexit vote. Cinven, one of Europe’s biggest private equity groups, raised €7bn from international investors for its latest buyout fund. Apax, CVC and Permira — all leading fund managers in the European industry — are also out hunting for new equity to invest.” (Financial Times, 4 July 2016,link)

Dominic Johnson (£67,658, attended dinners in Q3 and Q4 2017): Johnson is the Co-Founder of Somerset Capital Management, an investment firm set up by Hard Brexiteer and Chairman of the European Research Group Jacob Rees-Mogg. Somerset was recently reported to be warning their clients about “considerable uncertainty” as a result of Brexit, and set up a new fund in Ireland, which benefits from EU financial passporting rights.

“A City firm co-founded by the influential Conservative backbencher, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has set up an investment fund in Ireland and is warning prospective clients about the financial dangers of the sort of hard Brexit favoured by the Tory MP. London-based Somerset Capital Management (SCM) described Brexit as a risk in a prospectus to a new fund it launched in March, which has been marketed to international investors who want to keep their money in the EU long-term.” (The Guardian, 14 June 2018,link).

“There are rolling pockets of stress, distress, dislocation, in retail, energy, and financials — not so much US but European financials. That gives us dispersion [of prices] and opportunity. (Financial News, 4 April 2018,link).

Lubov Chernukhin (£274,100, attended dinners in Q4 2017):Chernukhin is the wife of the former deputy finance minister of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Chernukhin has previously, in 2012, been declared an impermissible donor to the Conservatives.

“The wife of one of Vladimir Putin’s former ministers, who successfully bid £160,000 at a Tory fundraiser to play tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson, has made a further donation to the party.” (The Times, 3 December 2017,link).

“We exploit dislocations in markets and unlock value from complex situations using a Get Rich and Stay Rich strategy. This strategy has given rise to returns over 23 years of 28% p.a. Net IRR” (Disruptive Capital, 11 July 2018,link).

Andrew Law (£630,460, attended dinners in Q3 2017):Law originally backed Remain in the referendum, but since the result has begun backing Theresa May’s Hard Brexit approach. His fund profited in the aftermath of the referendum result.

“New York-based global macro hedge fund firm Caxton Associates made gains of 2 percent on Friday after the UK voted to leave the European Union, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.” (Reuters, 29 June 2016,link)

Sir Henry Keswick (£7,000, attended dinners in Q4 2017):Keswick’s wife donated £40,000 to the Vote Leave campaign, and he owns a family fortune that stems from controlling interests in the bank Jardine Matheson that played a role in the Opium Wars.

“Sir Edward Percy Keswick Weatherall’s family fortune comes from its controlling share of the bank Jardine Matheson, which played a notable role in the 19th century Opium Wars, an episode of British history so bloody that it caused William Gladstone to say at the time that he lived “in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China”. (Open Democracy, 16 October 2017,link).

Robin Doumar (no donation, attended dinners in Q3 and Q4 2017 and Q1 2018):Doumar is a Managing Partner at private debt manager Park Square Capital. He has personally noted that Brexit would be bad for Britain’s economy, but said that his company could benefit from this.

“In the UK, Doumar notes that the referendum on European Union membership has “injected a lot of risk”. At the time of the interview, the vote was looming on the near horizon. Doumar felt that an exit would be “a bad economic result” although he pointed out that Park Square could benefit from the acquisition of distressed assets, with the banks finding themselves under even more stress. He also noted that the firm had been using hedging strategies to reassure its investors that it was managing risk appropriately.” (Park Square Capital, July 2016,link).

Full breakdown of all Leader’s Group dinner guests and their donations since the 2017 GE

All donation figures are sourced from Electoral Commission data, and count donations made in cash or the value of non-cash donations, made under the name of the individual or an associated company.